Last week, the Baker-Polito Administration awarded $20 million in grants to support 26 energy storage projects in 25 Massachusetts communities. This grant program puts the state clearly in the storage leadership role in the East.

The little town of Sterling, MA is getting a lot of attention these days. Not only has the Sterling Municipal Light Department won awards for its new solar+storage microgrid, the town is getting visitors from Germany, Japan, Norway and many other countries.

In the same way that states have led the policy support for wind and solar technologies, they are now leading the way on energy storage. A model for states to look to when crafting energy storage policy is Massachusetts.

The next wave of clean energy policy making will be more focused on energy storage, as evidenced by the release this week of the long-awaited Massachusetts energy storage report, titled “State of Charge.”

Although many municipalities have gained some limited experience in the area of distributed energy resources, mostly due to the success of the distributed solar industry, adding energy storage and islanding capability to the mix raises a whole new set of questions.

Some utilities’ opposition to the so-called free ridership of solar customers, and the related downward pressure on the value of net metering, has become an oft-repeated headline. But this month, utilities and solar developers in New York pioneered a new, cooperative approach to the issue that deserves close attention.